MELBOURNE -- Venus and Serena Williams discovered they're no match for the men on the ATP tennis tour, at least not yet.

In an impromptu 'Battle of the Sexes' at the Australian Open yesterday, first Serena, then Venus challenged No 203 Karsten Braasch to a set apiece, and he beat them both.

Serena fell 6-1, Venus 6-2. They played as intensely as they could, while Braasch performed with gentlemanly restraint.

"It was extremely hard," said the 16-year-old Serena. "I didn't know it would be that hard. I hit shots that would have been winners on the women's tour and he got to them easily."

That didn't stop her from boasting that "this time next year I'll beat him. I have to pump some weight . . . I have to work hard to be on the men's tour."

Venus, 17, wasn't about to concede too much either, especially since she broke Braasch's serve once.

"I can beat men in the 300s and up," she said. "He thought we couldn't get a point. He didn't think we could play. We showed him we could."

Asked if she might not want to take on players on the senior tour, or retired men as Billie-Jean King did against 1939 Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs in their ballyhooed 'Battle of the Sexes' in 1973, Venus shook her beaded head.

"I'm going for the young guns," she said.

Braasch smiled at their claims.

"Against anyone in the top 500, no chance," Braasch said, "because I was playing like 600 today."

The sister act played Braasch on Court 12 in the boondocks of the Australian Open complex. A few hundred fans and players who wandered by witnessed the event along with a crowd of media. No umpire, no linesmen, no ball boys, no scoreboard. And no prize money or bets. Only pride was at stake.

It all started a few days ago when the Williams sisters wandered into the ATP tour office at the Australian Open and boldly claimed they could beat any of the men ranked 200 or above. The bespectacled Braasch, a German who has sunk in the rankings after reaching 38 in 1994, happened to be in the office and took up the challenge.

Venus was still in the tournament at the time so a match was set between Serena and Braasch for Sunday. Rain postponed that until yesterday and with the sun shining Serena and Braasch showed up ready to defend the honour of their sexes.

At least that's how Serena saw it. For Braasch, it was a joke. He never even considered the possibility he might be ridiculed by the other men players if he lost.

"Everyone knew that there's no chance for them," he said. "They were talking to me, that I should go out and beat them by as much as possible. They said make it 24 points and go off the court."

He played, he said, for fun, "because tennis doesn't have to be serious, especially when you're out of the tournament." Braasch lost last week in the singles and doubles.

When Riggs lost to King at the Houston Astrodome, there was a crowd of more than 30 000 -- the biggest in tennis history. That nationally televised exhibition, four months after Riggs' 'Mother's Day Massacre' of Margaret Court, did more to establish women's tennis than any other match or tournament.

The Williams sisters, in their way, are bringing new life to the women's tour, even if they couldn't beat Braasch. Venus reached the final of the US Open and the quarters here. Serena has beaten three top 10 players since turning pro a few months ago. Each has the personality and flash to make the sport more popular than ever.

Braasch, a left-handed junk ball expert with a convoluted service motion, won the first five games against Serena. He ran her dizzy all over the court, showing her a befuddling assortment of spins.

He could have hit harder if he wanted, taken her out of points sooner, but as her unofficial coach, Nick Bollettieri, noted at courtside, "He's being kind to her."

Venus, who had just changed into jeans after losing in the women's quarter-finals to Lindsay Davenport, showed up at Court 12 late and saw her sister getting trounced.

"I'd definitely take this guy on," she said. When Braasch held at love to 5-0, Venus' competitiveness got the better of her.

"Maybe I should go get dressed," she said to Bollettieri. "What do you think, Nick?"

"Go for it," he answered.

Venus raced across Melbourne Park, her multi-coloured beads flying among the surprised fans. She changed quickly and raced right back, arriving out of breath just as Serena won her only game when Braasch netted a backhand after a couple of deuces.

The small crowd roared for Serena, but Braasch closed out the set with an ace a few moments later.

As Serena and Braasch shook hands, Venus entered the court and issued her own challenge to Braasch.

Venus had as little success as Serena when the match got under way. She lost her first service game at love, managed only one point on Braasch's serve and dropped her next serve.

But after going down 4-0, Venus held serve at love as Braasch hit several errors.

Perhaps boredom was setting in because Braasch then lost his own serve to 4-2 when Venus cracked a sizzling forehand past him on her second break point.

Braasch wasn't about to let the set get away. He stepped up his pace a bit, overpowered Venus on her serve and closed out the match with an ace.

"I took at least 50 per cent off my serve," Braasch said.

"I came out with a few hard ones, but not too much because then it's not fun anymore and it was supposed to be fun." -- Sapa-AP

Thanks for digging that up and posting it. I just can't get the image out of my head of a high school sophomore and junior going into the ATP office and saying they can beat any guy over 200. It's so classic, I love it.

Excellent post as usual Datacipher! Unbelievably i just fell across a story on this match in an old tennis mag i recently won on ****, with 39 others of course

Ok, now to add to your excellent story. For starters Braasch had played golf that morning, had a couple of beers and inhaled half a pack of ciggies. He also very definitely served at 50%.

Clisters said out here recently that she struggles to win a point of Hewitt, let alone a game. From memory Evert-Lloyd had a brother who played low level college tennis or the like and said she wouldn't even be able to beat him (Back near her prime this was) We recently had a small satellite tourney here and none of the girls would have got more than a game or two off local Dale Houston, who is now 43 but took a set of Wilander back in the 80's in the year he beat Curren to win the Aussie open.

Yeah, I don't think you will be seeing any women on the men's tour any time soon. Why bother? The prize money is almost exactly the same and you tend to get more attention (which is all that Serena wants) if you are the number 1 women's player than the number 500 or whatever men's player.

These two sets have taken on legendary status, so let's get the facts straight. They were played at the Australian Open in 1998. Serena lost 6-1 and Venus lost 6-2. Braasch had dropped to 203 in the world because of an injury in 1997. He was described by Paul Fein in the book Tennis Confidential (Washington D.C. 2002-pub. by Brassey's Inc), the original source for public knowledge of these encounters, as a smoker. At no time did Fein claim that he was smoking on-court, or on the changeovers or otherwise not going all-out. I know from personal observation that Pancho Gonzalez was a heavy smoker, and the Tennis magazine profile of Marat Safin this year shows him smoking during an interview, so clearly tobacco use does not disqualify one from playing at a high level.
We've gone from the absurd idea circa the mid-70's that women could compete on the men's tour to the equally absurd idea voiced on these boards that a male 5.5 could beat the Williams sisters largely on the basis of these two sets. Should the 2004 US Open have been stopped after the first set because Hewitt was bagelled? Would that set have logically indicated that a male 5.5 could have beaten him?
Here's some more info on Braasch . http://www.atptennis.com/en/players/playerprofiles/Highlights/default.asp?playernumber=B305

I think LLoyd's brother played for Auburn not Vanderbilt. Could be wrong but i saw him play in the SEC tournament. He did not win and I don't think he was even #1 on his team. I do remember Chris saying when she was #1 that she couldn't beat her own brother--Think his name was John.

okay, so i'm at work the other day arguing with these idiots who don't know anything about tennis, onlyplayed it during p.e.in high school, and when the william sisters name came up,one of them said that he thought the william sisters could possibly beat like "the number 20 ranked man?! are you fricking kidding me i told him? they couldn't beat the number 200 ranked man, they couldn't beat the ncaa men's champ, and they couldn't beat the top 18 under junior u.s. champ either!

i've been myself playing since i was 9, played in high school and college,read every tennis magazine for 30 years now, watch every tennis tournament on tv, have been to many pro tournaments in person,i've taught tennis at summer camps (i'm not a certified pro, but i could be if i wanted to) and consider myself a amateur tennis historian, and these idiots still 1)couldn't believe me 2) said it was just my opinion and their entitled to their opinion 3) and just because i knew tennis history didn't make me a tennis expert? huh !!

i gave them the reasons why in terms of yes the williams sisters hit their serve for instance as hard as many of the men, but guess what there are probably 50 or more guys who can serve the ball just as hard, so when the sisters serve to a guy he could return it, where as what if any of these men serve to the sisters? also, men hit their groundstrokes harder and faster, since their naturally stronger,

i gave them historic background matches even such as: in the 1920's tilden def lenglen 6-0, in the 1950's maureen connolly practice against men to make her better and that in an article published in the new york times she said she lost the other day to a local pro that no one had ever heard of, in chris evert's autobiography she wrote when she was number 1 she got beat easily by her younger brother who only played college tennis, in 1993 when an over the hill j.connors played a soon to be retired from singles navratilova he gave her the doubles alleys and only 1 serve for himself and he still killed her, i even described the whole king vs riggs and riggs vs court matches and why the outcomes ( and yeah, i don't sound like a tennis expert?!!!), i told them go on any tennis website message board and ask how the william sisters would do against men and 100 people who know tennis (former and current players, judges, commentators would agree with me!) their answer was well until the day that they play against a man then everyone i just mentioned is just their opinion!!!!! well, when the heck does an opinion become a fact then? especially since this event will never happen?

they countered with the william sisters hit the ball and are more athletic than the women i mentioned ( evert,connolly,etc) which i agreed but guess what men today also hit the ball harder than men in previous eras so the power disparity is still there! i don't know if these guys are just stupid, stubborn or both? the one guy said " let's say i'm a car expert and i say your honda civic is the best car in the world would you automatically agree with me? i said " well, if you know about cars then i do, give me data and reasoning and others agreed with you then yes, i would say your right!" his reply?: well, your more trusting than more people.huh?. one of the men whose black said " well years ago they used to say black people were inferior to white people and we know that's not true! HUH? what does that have to do with what i/we were discussing, i told him "well, that was caused by stupid loser white racist who wanted to promote their own ideology.

they really cracked up when i told them years ago when i played in high school ( i was top 16 in the state of of illinois and st.louis all area team) and during when i played in college that i could have HIT with the william sisters, they fell off their chairs then! what the heck, i told them you don't know how good i was or how hard i could hit the ball back then, could i have beaten them of course not, could i get a game off them? if i was lucky, but i COULD rally with them, they didn't believe that either!!

so basically the argument ended with my opinion and their opinion and their entitled to it, which i thought " even if it's wrong". i said finally the only men the william sisters would be competive with is if they played the 18 under u.s. junior boy champ and i would still go with him winning!!sorry to go on and on but somebody help me out here, what else could i have said to prove my point?

You should of googled 'Williams Braasch' beforehand and learned that back in 1998 at the Australian Open, the sisters bragged that they could beat any male ranked around 200, so Karsten Braasch (ranked 203) took the challenge after playing 18 holes of golf, downing a few beers and having a cigarette. He easily beat Serena 6-1 and then Venus 6-2. Later he said he was only half-trying. The sisters then mouthed off and said they could beat any guy ranked around 350....

You should of googled 'Williams Braasch' beforehand and learned that back in 1998 at the Australian Open, the sisters bragged that they could beat any male ranked around 200, so Karsten Braasch (ranked 203) took the challenge after playing 18 holes of golf, downing a few beers and having a cigarette. He easily beat Serena 6-1 and then Venus 6-2. Later he said he was only half-trying. The sisters then mouthed off and said they could beat any guy ranked around 350....

What your buds do not understand is how heavy of a ball the guys hit. I remember a few years back J Mac/Steffi played Serena/??? in Wimbledon mixed and Mac hit her a kick serve. She got ate up by the serve and had to deflect it with her hand.

I saw Steve Bryan when he was #1 16 in Texas beat Navatrilova when she was still top 5 beat her 6-1.

Your friends are goofballs. The physical difference in strength and quickness between men and women is vast.

I remember when Jackie Joyner Kersee, the famous American heptathlete, was considered the greatest woman athlete. As a skinny white high school track athlete, I could have beaten her in a number of events. So one of the greatest women athletes of all time, could have been beaten by a good, but not brilliant, high school male athlete.

Tell your friends to watch some tennis. It is obvious that the women don't cover the court or hit anywhere near as quickly as the men do.

It is a simple, offensive, but accurate fact: Men are better at sports than women. My sister has been playing tennis for 6 years. She has taken lessons, she has played in tournaments and trains all summer. On the contrary, I've been playing for about a year with no formal training. Yesterday I bet her 200 bucks she could not beat me in a one set match. She accept the challenge and guess what? I whooped her 6-2. She hits a nice ball however, I'm fast enough to chase down everything. She has no weapon to beat me. I do not think she even hit one winner throughout the match. My sister, as should all women, learned the simple fact that she is inferior in regards to sports.

Yeah, your "friends" don't know what they are talking about; neither Williams sister (and don't get me wrong, I think they are fantastic female players) could beat any of the top 1500 male players, which of course would include the top NCAA men, and world-ranked juniors.

A former pro at my club who was once in the top 80 in the world and has a win against Brad Gilbert (when Gilbert was #4) told us that he once got a call from Martina Navratilova's people to arrange a practice with her. This was in the 80's, of course, when she was in her prime. When he showed up he was specifically instructed not to beat her in any practice set, which he ignored and promptly spanked her. He ended up not getting paid for the practice - stiffed by Martina!

It is a simple, offensive, but accurate fact: Men are better at sports than women. My sister has been playing tennis for 6 years. She has taken lessons, she has played in tournaments and trains all summer. On the contrary, I've been playing for about a year with no formal training. Yesterday I bet her 200 bucks she could not beat me in a one set match. She accept the challenge and guess what? I whooped her 6-2. She hits a nice ball however, I'm fast enough to chase down everything. She has no weapon to beat me. I do not think she even hit one winner throughout the match. My sister, as should all women, learned the simple fact that she is inferior in regards to sports.

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...Not insulting your sis at all, but have you ever considered the reason she could not win may be due to a lack of that intangible thing percieved as superior talent? Training and on-court experience alone does not walk hand-in-hand with success, unless one is lucky (read: Sharapova, Roddick). Think about it: if Venus, Serena, Federer or the rubber-room-case Henin lacked talent, all of the training in the world would not have produced their history, Similarly, certain top 20 males (minus the luck factor) seem to have training/experience but fail to earn the slams. Superior talent may be the difference, and a reason your sister could not beat you.

It is a simple, offensive, but accurate fact: Men are better at sports than women. My sister has been playing tennis for 6 years. She has taken lessons, she has played in tournaments and trains all summer. On the contrary, I've been playing for about a year with no formal training. Yesterday I bet her 200 bucks she could not beat me in a one set match. She accept the challenge and guess what? I whooped her 6-2. She hits a nice ball however, I'm fast enough to chase down everything. She has no weapon to beat me. I do not think she even hit one winner throughout the match. My sister, as should all women, learned the simple fact that she is inferior in regards to sports.

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Dude, your sister must really suck at tennis. At your level, men and women can play against each other competitively since they both will make unforced errors all over the place, but at pro level, they don't make unforced errors like beginners anymore, and hence physical ability is what determines the outcome of the match.

"Against anyone in the top 500, no chance," Braasch said, "because I was playing like 600 today."

Ouch!

Keep in mind that Serena and Venus were 17 and 18 years old at the time. They are much better players now, with tons of experience and majors titles on their mantles. Given that, I'm sure if they played the #203 ranked player today the game scores would be...6-2, 6-2-very little difference.

. I remember a few years back J Mac/Steffi played Serena/??? in Wimbledon mixed and Mac hit her a kick serve. She got ate up by the serve and had to deflect it with her hand.

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I'm pretty sure this match never happened.

Venus & Serena only talked about playing or beating men when they first joined the tour, they certainly don't think they can do so today. I remember a few years ago Serena saying that her male practice partner could get to any shot she hit & had no problem returning her serve, saying that none of the girls on tour could do that. I doubt he is on the pro tour.

to the op: venus & serena have been quoted as being big fans of sampras & federer, saying that they would lose to them '6-0,6-0 forever'
if you want you can show that there isn't that much ability between the 1 & 20 guy on tour(using results), so if Serena or Venus said that about Sampras, what does that mean about how they'd fare against the #20 guy?

also davenport said she can't beat her husband & capriati said she can't beat her brother. neither played on the pro tour.

tennis is always underated by the non-tennis playing public athletically. probably since it doesn't involve contact & that the playing field is so small compared to team sports(so they assume speed probably doesn't make as much of a difference)
plus going by appearances, venus & serena have bigger muscles than quite a few guys on the atp, so an uneducated viewer may think, she's stronger, so why can't she beat them? in team sports, that kind of muscle mass difference usually means the athlete is better, so its hard for them to really 'get' tennis. plus it is a sport that is 90% white, while the majority of nfl/nba is black, so there may be some subconcious feelings coming through(like if its a sport being played just by white guys, how good can they be? why can't the sisters beat them? etc etc.)

anyway, not sure why you care what they think, they can't be the first people you've encountered that feel this way?

okay, so i'm at work the other day arguing with these idiots who don't know anything about tennis, onlyplayed it during p.e.in high school, and when the william sisters name came up,one of them said that he thought the william sisters could possibly beat like "the number 20 ranked man?! are you fricking kidding me i told him? they couldn't beat the number 200 ranked man, they couldn't beat the ncaa men's champ, and they couldn't beat the top 18 under junior u.s. champ either!

i've been myself playing since i was 9, played in high school and college,read every tennis magazine for 30 years now, watch every tennis tournament on tv, have been to many pro tournaments in person,i've taught tennis at summer camps (i'm not a certified pro, but i could be if i wanted to) and consider myself a amateur tennis historian, and these idiots still 1)couldn't believe me 2) said it was just my opinion and their entitled to their opinion 3) and just because i knew tennis history didn't make me a tennis expert? huh !!

i gave them the reasons why in terms of yes the williams sisters hit their serve for instance as hard as many of the men, but guess what there are probably 50 or more guys who can serve the ball just as hard, so when the sisters serve to a guy he could return it, where as what if any of these men serve to the sisters? also, men hit their groundstrokes harder and faster, since their naturally stronger,

i gave them historic background matches even such as: in the 1920's tilden def lenglen 6-0, in the 1950's maureen connolly practice against men to make her better and that in an article published in the new york times she said she lost the other day to a local pro that no one had ever heard of, in chris evert's autobiography she wrote when she was number 1 she got beat easily by her younger brother who only played college tennis, in 1993 when an over the hill j.connors played a soon to be retired from singles navratilova he gave her the doubles alleys and only 1 serve for himself and he still killed her, i even described the whole king vs riggs and riggs vs court matches and why the outcomes ( and yeah, i don't sound like a tennis expert?!!!), i told them go on any tennis website message board and ask how the william sisters would do against men and 100 people who know tennis (former and current players, judges, commentators would agree with me!) their answer was well until the day that they play against a man then everyone i just mentioned is just their opinion!!!!! well, when the heck does an opinion become a fact then? especially since this event will never happen?

they countered with the william sisters hit the ball and are more athletic than the women i mentioned ( evert,connolly,etc) which i agreed but guess what men today also hit the ball harder than men in previous eras so the power disparity is still there! i don't know if these guys are just stupid, stubborn or both? the one guy said " let's say i'm a car expert and i say your honda civic is the best car in the world would you automatically agree with me? i said " well, if you know about cars then i do, give me data and reasoning and others agreed with you then yes, i would say your right!" his reply?: well, your more trusting than more people.huh?. one of the men whose black said " well years ago they used to say black people were inferior to white people and we know that's not true! HUH? what does that have to do with what i/we were discussing, i told him "well, that was caused by stupid loser white racist who wanted to promote their own ideology.

they really cracked up when i told them years ago when i played in high school ( i was top 16 in the state of of illinois and st.louis all area team) and during when i played in college that i could have HIT with the william sisters, they fell off their chairs then! what the heck, i told them you don't know how good i was or how hard i could hit the ball back then, could i have beaten them of course not, could i get a game off them? if i was lucky, but i COULD rally with them, they didn't believe that either!!

so basically the argument ended with my opinion and their opinion and their entitled to it, which i thought " even if it's wrong". i said finally the only men the william sisters would be competive with is if they played the 18 under u.s. junior boy champ and i would still go with him winning!!sorry to go on and on but somebody help me out here, what else could i have said to prove my point?

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didnt read your whole post but the sisters even said once that they would get destroyed by men... they cited the mens serve as the biggest hurdle....

...Not insulting your sis at all, but have you ever considered the reason she could not win may be due to a lack of that intangible thing percieved as superior talent? Training and on-court experience alone does not walk hand-in-hand with success, unless one is lucky (read: Sharapova, Roddick). Think about it: if Venus, Serena, Federer or the rubber-room-case Henin lacked talent, all of the training in the world would not have produced their history, Similarly, certain top 20 males (minus the luck factor) seem to have training/experience but fail to earn the slams. Superior talent may be the difference, and a reason your sister could not beat you.

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Yes, but I'm far from talented either. Just yesterday I was riding my bike and I did not notice how acute the turn of the road was and I rode my bike right into a tree. No joke. My sister and I both lack great coordination. I beat her because I'm fast and do not miss that much for a newbie. She does not have the physical strength to get the pace required to hit a winner. If she was as strong as I am, she would have just blown shots by me left and right. Women are weaker than men and therefore inferior when it comes to sports.

It is a simple, offensive, but accurate fact: Men are better at sports than women. My sister has been playing tennis for 6 years. She has taken lessons, she has played in tournaments and trains all summer. On the contrary, I've been playing for about a year with no formal training. Yesterday I bet her 200 bucks she could not beat me in a one set match. She accept the challenge and guess what? I whooped her 6-2. She hits a nice ball however, I'm fast enough to chase down everything. She has no weapon to beat me. I do not think she even hit one winner throughout the match. My sister, as should all women, learned the simple fact that she is inferior in regards to sports.

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On amateur level women can compete with men. I´ve mostly always played with men, and I regularly beat a man, that was 20 years older than me, so in his 40s, often easily 6-2, depending on my form. It was simply because, he sucked at sports. But I also can well compete with my uncles, and with some players my age, and I never had a real trainer, nor do I play very much. I think I would have problems against a guy at my level, and probably be beaten, and that´s what happens in sports, if men compete against women their level, and that´s why they´re separated.
Didn´t Serena say at Wimbly, that she only hits with guys, who can beat her (no top pro players) to prepare for matches. I also remember darkly that she played a fun match against some royal amateur player (who was that again?) at the Laureus awards and lost 7-5 in the third.

I brought this and pay topic with my philosophy instructor. She agreed that men and women are physically different and draw comparisons with NBA and WNBA.
She mentioned that women are slowly catching up in strength and stamina.

In regards to equal pay, she says even though WTA players draw less crowd or boring they needed to compensated equally because its about time , she is a feminist.

Thanks for the WHOLE story! The girls were still.......................girls, 16 & 17 years old. I bet they would have better success now than then against men in the 250's or 300's. I know that they would smoke all if not all of the men that are posting here and putting them down.

Yeah, this whole "The Williams ought to be playing with the men," theory and so-forth is just one of those ideas created by the media (the kind of media that doesn't really know tennis, you know like that stuff ESPN shows, etc:roll:.) It really irked me to hear recently on ESPN in that comparison between Federer and Tony Parker, they said that men's tennis really isn't "hot." Women's tennis is what's hot right now. Yeah, screw men's tennis. :roll:
I don't know why the hell those people still have those jobs.

On amateur level women can compete with men. I´ve mostly always played with men, and I regularly beat a man, that was 20 years older than me, so in his 40s, often easily 6-2, depending on my form. It was simply because, he sucked at sports.

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Picking someone of lesser talent, regardless of gender, is an easy way to chalk up wins. Congratulations!

I brought this and pay topic with my philosophy instructor. She agreed that men and women are physically different and draw comparisons with NBA and WNBA.
She mentioned that women are slowly catching up in strength and stamina.

In regards to equal pay, she says even though WTA players draw less crowd or boring they needed to compensated equally because its about time , she is a feminist.

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Good post. I would add there are mental differences too - men, on average, are better competitors. Very few women truly hate to lose like most men, and will 'capitulate' when they're losing.

'Slowly' is very relative. 20 yrs ago they said women would eventually beat men in marathons. Still ain't happening. Even in billiards, where strength is only involved in the break, women can't even get close. In bowling, good amateur men routinely school female pros.

The whole battle of the sexes in sports is just a creation of the left leaning, guilty conscience press. And a lot of women's tennis popularity is based on men being willing to watch attractive women do almost anything. Men would watch two hotties play tennis even if they were ranked in the 50s. Back when she had her tennis playing look (not today's emaciated, pale skinned actress look), Anna Kournikova could have attracted millions to a Pay-Per-View to watch her fold laundry.

On amateur level women can compete with men. I´ve mostly always played with men, and I regularly beat a man, that was 20 years older than me, so in his 40s, often easily 6-2, depending on my form. It was simply because, he sucked at sports. But I also can well compete with my uncles, and with some players my age, and I never had a real trainer, nor do I play very much. I think I would have problems against a guy at my level, and probably be beaten, and that´s what happens in sports, if men compete against women their level, and that´s why they´re separated.
Didn´t Serena say at Wimbly, that she only hits with guys, who can beat her (no top pro players) to prepare for matches. I also remember darkly that she played a fun match against some royal amateur player (who was that again?) at the Laureus awards and lost 7-5 in the third.

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There are certainly women who can compete with men below the pro level, but in general, it would take longer for a woman to reach a certain level of tennis than a man. For instance, I often play with a woman who is a strong 3.5 rated player and wins most of her women's league matches. I play men's 3.0 and will win slightly above half of my matches. However when I play against her, I usually beat her pretty easily unless I'm having a very bad day, in which case she might win one set off me if she's lucky. She's played alot more tennis than me over the years, yet because I am superior to her in all athletic qualities, I always beat her. So you can't really say that women can compete with men when you're talking about players with a relatively equal amount of experience or training.

You should of googled 'Williams Braasch' beforehand and learned that back in 1998 at the Australian Open, the sisters bragged that they could beat any male ranked around 200, so Karsten Braasch (ranked 203) took the challenge after playing 18 holes of golf, downing a few beers and having a cigarette. He easily beat Serena 6-1 and then Venus 6-2. Later he said he was only half-trying. The sisters then mouthed off and said they could beat any guy ranked around 350....

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Don't forget a while back during the beginning of the year, Serena said that she could beat The Federer on her best day. It was on some interview during the Aussie Open, I believe, maybe after the Aussie.

You should of googled 'Williams Braasch' beforehand and learned that back in 1998 at the Australian Open, the sisters bragged that they could beat any male ranked around 200, so Karsten Braasch (ranked 203) took the challenge after playing 18 holes of golf, downing a few beers and having a cigarette. He easily beat Serena 6-1 and then Venus 6-2. Later he said he was only half-trying. The sisters then mouthed off and said they could beat any guy ranked around 350....